Jack Handey - Deep Thoughts

Deep Thoughts

In April 1984, National Lampoon published the first of Jack Handey's Deep Thoughts. Additional Deep Thoughts appeared in the October and November 1984 editions as well as in the short-lived comedy magazine Army Man, while more appeared in 1988 in The New Mexican. The one-liners were to become Handey's signature work, notable for their concise humor and their outlandish hypothetical situations. For example:

• If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.

• The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw.

Handey's work next showed up in the Mike Nesmith produced TV series Television Parts, in the format which would later become famous on Saturday Night Live (though in that program, Nesmith provided the narration). Some of these bits appeared in the compilation video of that program, Doctor Duck's Super Secret All-Purpose Sauce.

Between 1991 and 1998, Saturday Night Live included Deep Thoughts on the show as an interstitial segment between sketches. Introduced by Phil Hartman and read live by Handey (neither actually appeared on screen), the one-liners proved to be extremely popular. Hartman would intone "And now, Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey...", and peaceful easy listening music would play while the screen showed soothing pastoral scenes, much like a New Age relaxation video. Handey would then read the Deep Thought as the text to it scrolled across the screen. They became an enduring feature of SNL, often having multiple Thoughts in each episode, and made Handey a well-known name.